Will Hutton ('Dinner table chat about house prices turns nasty', Comment, last week) fails to mention the prime culprits who, as a group, are largely responsible for the rate of property price inflation: the buy-to-let brigade.

This group makes up 11 per cent of a market that has relentlessly pushed up prices over the past decade. Their method of acquisition has been aided by building societies, estate agents and the attitude of the government.

A buyer exercising the freedom to buy to let by constantly remortgaging following acquisition after acquisition is fuelling despair for first-time buyers. Buying to let must be banned.Clifford Evans Fishguard, Pembrokeshire

Poverty is a family matter

There are no easy solutions to ending poverty ('Now the battle begins', Observer Comment, last week) but it will not be solved without strengthening families. The inconvenient truth is that there are more children in poverty in two-parent households than lone-parent households.

To get out of poverty these families have to earn three times as much as a lone-parent family. Tax credits discriminate against both children in poor married and those in poor cohabiting couples.

Until this is tackled there is no realistic prospect of ending child poverty. Not only will the two million children in two-parent families remain in poverty but lone parents will be prevented from forming new and stable relationships because this will be prohibitively expensive, and their children too will remain trapped in poverty.

You say that no one doubts the value of marriage or disputes the fact that two parents offer an ideal start in life. In which case the tax and tax credit system needs to support marriage and tackle child poverty.

No one is suggesting recreating Little House on the Prairie on Glasgow housing estates, but progressive politicians have to care about rebuilding family structures. And if you care about that, you will have to fall back in love with marriage.Don Draper Fiscal policy consultant, Lyme Regis, Dorset

I agree with much of your poverty editorial. We have significant problems with teenage pregnancy, youth crime and child abuse, but answers will not be found by simply trying to manage family structure. Children need to be linked with services that meet their individual needs, allowing them to grow and recognise that they have choice.

The reality is that a generation may be lost and we need to invest now in the parents of the future, utilising models beyond the concept of a nuclear family, which is rapidly becoming extinct.Tim Desmond Chief Executive, National Centre for Citizenship & the Law Galleries of Justice, Nottingham

Muslim 'terror' error

Isma'il Abushams Martens (Letters, last week) seeks a comparison between 'Muslim terror' and the 'slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia by Christian Serbs'. I don't know of any practising Christians who were not horrified by the slaughter of Muslim Bosnians and Kosovans, and would suggest that the comparison is not valid. The Muslim bombers have all been believers and carrying out their attacks in the name of Islam.

Many Bosnians, Kosovans and Serbs, have a religious affiliation in name only, and a significant number on both sides of the faith divide in reality have no religious belief. The fighting between Serbs and Croatians was not deemed a religious war between Orthodox and Catholic. I suggest the Yugoslavian conflicts, unlike the recent terror attacks, were nationalist rather than religious.DN Taylor Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire

Drugs and the Tories

It is encouraging that the Conservative party is drawing attention to the links between mental health problems and cannabis use ('Tories highlight cannabis dangers in drug blueprint', News, last week). At my organisation, Rethink, we know only too well from scientific evidence and our supporters that cannabis is risky for people under 18 and those with a mental illness.

However, debating the legal status of the drug will not help address the levels of public ignorance. Fewer teenagers are using cannabis now that it's a class C drug than when it was in class B. All political parties should sign up to a cannabis public health education campaign so that people, particularly teenagers, understand the risks.Paul Corry Director of public affairs, Rethink, London EC2

Fantasy trains...

Anyone expecting real good news under your headline 'Railways set for a hi-tech revolution' (News, last week) will be in for a disappointment. Most of these 'promises' are only pencilled in, and some will take almost 25 years to realise, providing opportunity for yet more U-turns. Many of the people waiting for new trains will have died before they come in!

In the past half century Britain has dithered over whether railways are really still a good idea at all. The network has been reduced in most of the country outside London to a patchwork characterised by vast rail deserts where trains exist only in folklore. In a similar period, the Victorians built - from scratch and using pickaxes and sweat - more track mileage than we have allowed to remain today.Paul S Cairns Halifax

I agree with much of your item 'Fears for Virgin's unsullied image' (Media, last week) but have reservations about the quote on Virgin Trains coming out of its nightmare and the public seeming willing to forgive Richard Branson.

Virgin seems to be following timetables from the Sixties. Worse, it is operating a complicated fare system which will inevitably mean the unwary traveller paying exorbitant charges.

An unpleasant atmosphere greets the traveller on boarding a train, created by frequent announcements warning passengers to be in possession of the 'correct tickets'. Anyone without one is spoken to in a way more appropriate to a nasty dictatorship than to a democratic country.Alexander Clements Gatley, Cheshire

... and fantasy friends

My elder daughter had four imaginary friends who lived with us for some time ('Imaginary pals are good for children', News, last week). Giri, James Hulkey, Tuffley and Mo watched TV, and were bathed together and read to at bedtime. Laying four 'extra' places for dinner had to be explained to guests.

One summer we set off in the Dormobile motor caravan for our annual holiday. After five or six miles hysterical sobbing came from the back. We had left James Hulkey behind and there was no choice but to turn round. On arriving back at the house we 'found' James waiting on the pavement.Jeffrey Evans Exeter, Devon

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